


Freedom

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Introspection, M/M, Minor Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, No Spoilers, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Pre-Relationship, Trans Male Character, Trans Sylvain Jose Gautier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 15:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: When people asked Sylvain why he came to the Officers Academy when he was already quite a bit older than the other students, there were lots of easy responses he could make. He wasn’t that bothered about studying, he wanted to wait a bit longer before entering adult life, he’d been waiting for the year with the cutest girls.All easy excuses. And those were what he usually went with, because they were all an awful lot easier than the truth.





	Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> The world needs more trans FE3H content. Therefore: this.

When people asked Sylvain why he came to the Officers Academy when he was already quite a bit older than the other students, there were lots of easy responses he could make. He wasn’t that bothered about studying, he wanted to wait a bit longer before entering adult life, he’d been waiting for the year with the cutest girls. All easy excuses. And those were what he usually went with, because they were all an awful lot easier than the truth. That was usually a lot more difficult for most people to wrap their heads around, unfortunately for him. 

Sometimes, if he was close with someone and he felt like they actually cared (very rare. Most of the people he spent time with didn’t see him as anything other than a good father for a baby and oh goddess they would be disappointed if they found out), he’d tell them. But it wasn’t really something he spoke about, not even to his friends. Of course, a few of them knew, because they’d known him as a child and therefore seen him...before. But for everyone else, he kept secretive.

For several years before coming to the Officers Academy, Sylvain had spent a lot of time shaping himself into the person he wanted to be. He’d cut all his hair off (badly, the first time, before he’d got someone else to cut it well), changed everything about the way he dressed, and physically...well, that was still ongoing. But everything else was a change, and he hadn’t wanted to come to the Academy in the middle of all of that. 

Now, though, his closest childhood friends were to be going with him, and although they hadn’t exactly spoken much in recent years, Sylvain felt as though he needed that support. Needed some people who knew him completely, as well as people who knew him how he wanted them to know him.

Sure, he pretended that he was fine with going, confident about where he was going, but the truth was that with his childhood friends going to the Academy, he felt better about it. It gave him hope that the whole thing wasn’t going to be superficial, with him flitting from conversation to conversation without forming any real ties. Even if he somehow managed to awkwardly end up pushing everyone else away by accident, he would have his friends around him. And right now, that sort of assurance was exactly what he needed. Sylvain didn't like to admit that he was scared, but...he was scared. 

It wasn’t that he thought that people wouldn’t see him how he wanted to be seen. He was a very attractive man and he knew that was exactly how he looked. He was more worried about what would happen if someone found out. If he actually got a girl back to his room somehow and she decided to spread it around. He needed someone at his back if that happened. Friends who could vouch for him and laugh off any rumours way more effectively than he was probably capable of himself. And he had those friends, so all he could do was tell himself that this was all going to be okay. 

It sort of turned out that he didn’t really need his friends at his back the whole time. More like he needed to watch his own back so his friends didn’t stab it while he wasn’t looking (but in a friendly way rather than an unfriendly way, of course). The rumours he’d been worried about didn’t come to pass at all, mostly because he was busy creating countless more by flirting with everyone with a pulse. But hey, could anyone really blame him? After years of not really being able to be who he wanted to be, the least he should be allowed was to have a little fun. Or a lot of fun, with literally anyone who would even glance in his direction. 

It wasn’t his fault that Garreg Mach was full of all the most eligible young people in Fódlan. Not to mention that most of them were, no offense intended, horribly repressed and completely inexperienced. Honestly, the way some of those men reacted when he told them they had a nice smile, you would have thought they’d never been complimented before in their lives. In the case of some of them, maybe they hadn’t. The more Sylvain talked to people here, the more he realised that childhood trauma was about as common as coming into your bedroom after a long day to find a cat turd on your doorstep. And with a monastery full of cats, that was a very common occurrence. 

Hell, when he flirted with Felix, the man had flushed. And then pinned him to the wall with the tip of his training sword and warned him not to do it again, which was even hotter. He wasn’t one to keep his mouth shut, so that particular encounter had ended with a couple of bruises. He wasn’t too offended because he’d definitely just been speaking the truth. If Felix wanted to get all sulky just because Sylvain told him he had pretty eyes, that was his own business. 

The experience was refreshing, in a way. Being away from his home for the first time, properly, ever. For the first time he was experiencing an environment where no one, absolutely no one, looked at him and viewed him as a woman. He wasn’t a forsaken daughter, or a misguided young lady, or anything like that. Sure, how people viewed him wasn’t much better, but it was different. Most of all, he had no father here to insist on marrying him off and having kids, and he could finally, finally concentrate on something that wasn’t his Crest. Living at Garreg Mach was a strange sort of freedom, considering that it was a school with daily routines and ten tons of rules, but it was so much better than what had come before. 

That didn’t mean there weren’t challenges. Like making sure that, even with his hot body making him absolutely irresistible, no one ever actually wanted to have sex with him. Just in case they decided to spread that around. It was difficult but maybe not as challenging as he’d thought. Girls apparently didn't much like it when he flirted with everyone around them whilst on a date with them. Doing that definitely reduced their chances of wanting to go back to his room after their date. So he was safe for now, as gloomy as it occasionally made him to know that he could never have any real relationship with any of the people he dated. 

Though having sex with anyone would be stupid for a multitude of reasons. The walls were thin, he lived next to Dimitri, he lived at the end of a very long corridor of people who would definitely hear when people walked past. Worst of all, he lived above Professor Byleth. He’d never live it down if they heard him having sex. So in the end, maybe it was a good thing that he wasn’t all that tempted to bring any girls back to his room. Or boys, although there were fewer of those around willing to indulge him in a date. 

That in itself was pretty great, honestly. Because it meant that men thought he was too manly to date. And if he was being completely, perfectly honest, he still liked to own a little bit of femininity. Even if said small bit of femininity was just being nice to people rather than rude to everyone like Felix was. Even if that small bit of femininity was being especially nice to Felix, for definitely no reason at all other than the fact that it annoyed him. Definitely not because he would sometimes, very briefly, smile for a half-second or so when Sylvain did something nice for him. 

...okay, maybe he was kidding himself a little there. But Felix was pretty much the last person in the whole monastery that Sylvain would actually date. He’d never live down the embarrassment, with their fathers trying to paint them as a budding couple when they were younger. It definitely wouldn’t be some kind of sweet revenge to actually kiss Felix now, now that he was who he wanted to be. Definitely not. Sylvain hadn’t thought about that at all. 

Not at all. Not even once, definitely never. Nope. But Felix could be pretty cute sometimes, when he wasn’t scowling. And when he was scowling, well. Sylvain never said he didn’t think that was hot (actually, he’d said the opposite. To Felix’s face). Felix hadn’t much appreciated that, but the momentary look of surprise and the slight blush had been worth the sharp elbow to the ribs that the comment had earned him. 

Alright, maybe Sylvain had a bit of a crush. It wasn’t something he could realistically follow up on or anything, because Felix was probably the most repressed noble out of all the repressed nobles Sylvain knew. And he knew a lot of repressed nobles. Challenging Dimitri for that title was quite an achievement on Felix’s part. And Ingrid, for that matter. Actually, Sylvain might have accidentally stolen all the emotional freedom when he was a child. Oops. Well, it wasn’t like he was using all that much of it now, so his friends were welcome to a piece or two whenever they wanted it. Especially Felix, if only because Sylvain really wanted to know what a sincere conversation with Felix would look like. 

Maybe that would come with more time. It had taken him a while to become the person he wanted to be, after all. Maybe Felix still needed a few years to stop brooding, figure out he was attracted to men, that kind of thing. More of the first one than the second, really, but the second one was still obvious to everyone.

Time heals all wounds, that kind of thing. Though there were plenty of wounds time wasn’t healing, he felt like all of his friends would come into their own eventually. Though obviously not as spectacularly (or with as much magic) as he had.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you enjoyed this, please consider leaving a comment.


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